Fixing the armor lines

NorthernFury

jamie.goddenrwb17_ESO wrote: »

I would like to see a synergy between a heavy armor passive and the 2h weapon line that works like 2h weapon passives that have differing effects based on the weapon type you are holding.

Perhaps a heavy armor passive that adds to damage instead of resists if you are wielding a 2h weapon?

This sort of change could allow both typical tank type characters and classical 2h knight type builds in heavy armor.

This is a really good idea.....adding different passives to the armor perks based on weapon would help solve a lot of specialization and build issues.....I hope someone at ZoS looks at this. Great idea.

Istyar

So basically nerfing Light Armor and buffing Medium Armor?

Durham

Amsel_McKay wrote: »

Heavy is not useless... I can get to max Magic or Stam and Health with Heavy armor earlier then light or medium. I can also at VR12 soft cap all regen stats, health and Magic and armor.

The problem is not the armor its the gameplay and min max players who rely on one stat to play, if you play with a multi stat player using both mana and stamina and want survivability go heavy. Try it and test it and you will see its fine.

Your right its not usless... but it not useful in pvp. 5% percent less melee damage then medium!!!!!!!! Think about it.... Wear 2 light with 5 medium is much more optimal for a melee toon...
EVEN in PVE it needs something more..

Durham

Change imovable to use some heavy armor this is an obvious buff to heavy imo. Why is this taking so long ...2 pieces to get 8 secs.. 1 sec for each additional piece ...7th piece gives a flat bonus of 3 secs to 15 secs... 15 secs of imovable would be a huge boost.. This sounds op at first however this person would have to choose magicka or stamina to max .. this setup would have low crits. Poor magicka management poor stamina management but would be a beast in tanking damage in PVP. Even in pve this would be nice to stack with af buffs....

Lynx7386

So basically nerfing Light Armor and buffing Medium Armor?

No, nerf light armor / slightly buff medium armor / majorly buff heavy armor.

jelliedsoup

Something has been done, spells. Put on your skirt and cast away. Must admit it makes me wonder why they bothered putting weapons in the game. On each of my many death recaps I occasionally see a weapon skill in there and hope thats enough for the weapon designer at zos to justify his/her existence.

dracobains_ESO

I was skimming your post and was really excited thinking this was something on PTS then read closer and realized this was a suggestion. Great thinking outside the box but there seems to be a certain stubbornness with this developer to retain the garbage design ideas even when obviously flawed. It is sad really to watch the ship falter from obstinance when there is so much here that is so well done.

Great effort and thought though and I will continue to cling to my sliver of hope someone still has enough insight to make the necessary changes to make this game function well.

ChillingSpree

I know I'm reviving a slightly old thread here, but this is a serious problem and I want to beg ZOS to take it seriously. I bought this game thinking I could make a heavy armor wearing templar, a paladin of sorts. I just spent the last 2 weeks leveling my templar to VR3, basically playing more than 12 hours a day, sometimes not even stopping to sleep. I was so excited to finally play an Elder Scrolls game online.

Honestly, when I found out that heavy armor was useless, I was infuriated. I felt like ZOS had basically ruined my favorite game. I now realize that ZOS knows basically nothing about making a balanced online game, since this appears to be their first foray into MMOs; for that reason, I'm a little calmer. I want to give them a chance. (To be honest, I have to give them a chance, since I already paid for 9 months of game time) So hopefully ZOS recognizes they made a huge mistake, and will have the humility and decency to solve the problem they created.

Even as a relatively new player, I can see the enormous imbalance. Really, all it takes is some basic mathematics understanding. Looking at the passives, it's immediately clear that heavy armor is less than half as effective at raising important stats. Already mentioned was the serious problem that light armor wearers can use Immovable, a heavy armor skill.

But there are imbalances to the armor system on a much deeper level, too. Magicka is the only stat worth playing with. Stamina is basically useless. For some reason, every single class skill, for every single class, uses magicka. Were dragon knights and nightblades seriously intended to be primarily magicka users? When I think of warriors and rogues, I think of stamina, not magicka. Honestly, this is pretty stupid, but it wouldn't be a problem if the skills in each armor line allowed heavy armor, or medium armor wearers to buff their magicka stats. Magicka recovery, spell cost, spell penetration, etc. are strictly in the domain of light armor. Medium armor gets passive skills that have virtually no use in PvP or endgame dungeons/trials. Heavy armor gets extremely weak passive skills that either give negligible bonuses to trivial stats, or give decent bonuses that are completely unnecessary. The block cost reduction seems like it's supposed to be "equal" to the spell cost bonus that light armor wearers get. And yet, is reduction of block cost really necessary, when tanks only use one or two stamina spells, and the rest magicka? Tanks rarely run out of stamina, they only really need block, bash, and taunt.

Virtually every endgame tank I've seen wears light armor. For some reason, this doesn't seem to be a problem to ZOS. Let that just sink in. Every experienced tank in ESO uses light armor. Do you realize how ridiculous that is? Do you realize how horrible that looks? Imagine trying to stand toe to toe with a giant troll, in real life, wearing nothing but a cotton robe. Are you kidding me?

There's a reason people are wearing light armor, and it's not cultural. Most players think the light armor looks dumb, especially for their sword/board characters. They're wearing light armor because they get LAUGHED AT if they don't. When people are laughing at you for wearing armor that was supposed to be viable, it's clearly not viable. So why don't we FIX THE PROBLEM?

Here are a few of my own suggestions:
1) Allow players to choose whether certain class skills will cost magicka or stamina. This makes the most sense for nightblades and dragon knights, obviously. But it also evens the playing field, allowing the stamina bonuses of medium armor to apply for class skills. At the moment, nobody uses that armor because the stamina bonuses are nowhere near as useful as the magicka bonuses of light armor.

2) Either nerf the magicka regen, spell cost, and spell penetration (taboo) OR drastically buff the heavy armor bonuses.

3) Give heavy armor users skills that will allow them to raise magicka, stamina, OR health regen. Why are the class skills so rigid in a game that was designed to give universally viable choices? This is unlike any Elder Scrolls game that has ever existed, and I know because I've played them all.

4) Make it impossible for players to use active abilities from respective armor skill lines unless they are actually wearing that type of armor. This should be a no-brainer.

5) Type of armor should dictate players' soft cap. This should also be a no-brainer... When a light armor wearer can reach the same armor level as a heavy armor wearer, within a 50 point margin, with a single buff, you've got a serious problem. The soft cap should be dynamically generated. That is, each piece of armor added to your player should add a certain number of points to the soft cap. A light helm could add 150 points to the soft cap, a medium helm 225, and a heavy helm 300. This way, a heavy armor wearer would have exactly twice the armor soft cap that a light armor wearer would have.

There are a number of other issues, but this post is getting long. Adding any one of these features would drastically improve the balance of the game. Taking each feature, which should have been in the game at launch, and balancing their numerical variables so that light armor and heavy armor are truly balanced for various purposes, would fix the game. We would suddenly find heavy armor tanks again... AND heavy armor healers. There should be a reason to use every type of armor.

2/3 of the armor in this game are basically useless, Zenimax. I'm not sure if that's a big deal to you. I'm not so interested in blaming you for your mistakes, as I am in getting you to fix them. I don't care that you made such a huge error, honestly. I make mistakes all the time... it's what makes us human. But I AM interested in playing the game that I just paid over $150 to play. I'm stuck wearing a bathrobe, when my character was designed to wear plate armor. That was the whole point of making the character. So now my money AND my time have been wasted, and that's a pretty big deal to me. I don't want to criticize anybody, I want the game to be fixed.

This really isn't a big fix. It's really not a difficult task. You could balance the whole armor system in less than 30 minutes, honestly. You could implement it on the server side... It probably wouldn't take more than 15 minutes. There is literally no reason to not fix it, other than stubbornness or insecurity. Perhaps ZOS refuses to acknowledge its own mistake, so it patronizes those who complain by acting like they're just missing something. That the system isn't broken, that the armor actually *is* balanced, that we just don't realize it because we're not smart enough or skilled enough.

When 90% of end users agree that the product is messed up, it's messed up. You don't have a legal obligation to fix the product, but you do have a moral one. If users perceive that they're not getting what they paid for, and that the people they're sending their money to aren't listening to their complaints, they're not gonna feel like paying those people anymore. They're not gonna keep waiting around for confirmation that the game will be fixed. We've already been waiting for confirmation. I've been looking for ANY post by ZOS about this issue. Just ONE post where ZOS says "we're working on it." I haven't seen anything, yet I've seen complaints dating back to a month after launch. Can you believe that? People have been complaining since LAUNCH, and ZOS hasn't said a thing about it. Well hopefully this gets your attention. If I don't see at least a post TALKING about the issue, I'm dropping my subscription and waiting for Bethesda to make another balanced game. I'm not interested in sitting around playing an MMO that's broken, waiting for someone to even confirm that they read my complaint, when there are so many other games out there that aren't broken. You either tell me you're gonna fix the problem, or you lose my business. Honestly, I think just about everybody in the game who knows what we're talking about would agree with that. We're sick of having to wear one of a limited number of costumes just to cover up the fact that we're wearing a bathrobe underneath. We're sick of all wearing the same, uncustomizable costume, just because what we're really wearing matches our character so poorly. We're sick of the reasons we bought the game being broken and useless. Some of us actually care about heavy armor. Some of us actually care about the fact that the Elder Scrolls universe has more types of characters than just mages, warlocks, and priests.

I encourage everybody who reads this message to write ZOS an email with your own PERSONAL complaints. Don't just copy and paste something. Make it personal. Show them how many people care about this issue. Show them how many people are waiting for mommy and daddy to tell us they know we're here.

Again, no hard feelings about this, I know it was a mistake and I will be so proud of ZOS as developers when I find out that they listened to their customers and fixed their product. I love everything else about the game, but this particular issue is so big that I can't keep my mouth shut. This particular issue is so deep, so core to the game's mechanics, that it needs attention. The rest of the game could be so brilliant, so state-of-the-art, so far ahead of the competition that it was the only game worth playing, and I still wouldn't be able to continue playing it... because I'm not a mage. That's not who I am, I'm sorry. I bought this game because I thought I could express my creativity and originality through my character choices. But now that I've nearly "beaten" the game, I realize that there is no real room for originality in the endgame. The only option is to wear a bathrobe, so, naturally, everyone is wearing a bathrobe. Some of you may like that, but I don't. It completely destroys the immersion of the game, it makes the game far less realistic, and it honestly *** all over the Elder Scrolls universe. Please fix this, so I'll have nothing left to complain about.

Thanks,
a concerned fan.

dsalter

the critical for Medium armor would put my crit rating over 100%.
and the break CC magicka cost is only friendly towards magicka users. the other 2 will now struggle so i'd say give medium a total 7/7 CC break of 50% reduction and Heavy a 35%. magicka spell cost reduction and free crit is more then plenty to compensate.

and putting evasion as your main stealth upgrade would nerf my build hard and maybe many other medium users due to needing to slot an extra ability just to improve stealth capability

timidobserver

Annulment is the only thing that makes heavy armor tolerable in PVP. Nothing you can change to it would keep me using it if you made it so that I can't use annulment with it.

It'd be fine for PVE, but this would be a massive nerf to heavy armor in pvp.

ChillingSpree

timidobserver: if they gave heavy armor some decent changes that would put it in line with light armor, and allowed heavy armor casters to actually get the magicka and spell cost buffs that they need (considering that's supposed to be the point of playing a templar, which is just another word for paladin the way i see it) then annulment wouldn't even be necessary...

why create a class, which is supposed to be a magic user wearing heavy armor, and then write off its ability to use heavy armor? now every class in the game can only use light armor... it's completely asinine that they would even consider giving light armor users such a massive advantage, because it destroys the game's lore and universe. bethesda is probably barfing in their mouths at the fact that orc berserkers, templar tanks, and wood elf rogues are wearing light armor alike. It's starting to really get on my nerves that ZOS won't even respond to these threads, yet they'll bark on and on and make trailers about the new content they're throwing in. content which, by the way, people don't even seem to care about, judging by the poll that's sitting in this forum. people overwhelmingly want fixes to balance and bugs, and ZOS is throwing at them literally exclusively group content, which they didn't even ask for. why would we want to play group content on a system where only one type of player is viable? i don't want to do anything but solo right now, even as a vet, because i will have to get into light armor and use a staff. i want to play group content, sure, but only if i can do it with my heavy armor templar tank who uses a god damn shield, like every other tank in the history of gaming. why on earth they're creating more content for a pve platform that's already broken is beyond me. if i, a heavy armor sword/board templar, can't compete with a light armor high elf at TANKING, then no. no, i don't want any more group content.

ZOS_LeroyW

Hey all! We've gone ahead and moved this thread from the General Discussion forum to the Armor Skills subforum of the Combat & Skill Lines forum as we feel it's a better fit.

Khivas_Carrick

I'm just going to leave this here so you lovelies can take a look at it.

That's my take on bringing Heavy Armor more in line with how Light and Medium Armor currently works, and I have ideas for Medium Armor to tweak it slightly to make it better. Basically it's along the same lines of what you have going on right now but more open ended to make it so a Battlemage and a Knight can exist in this game properly as intended.

Imp666

ZOS_LeroyW wrote: »

Hey all! We've gone ahead and moved this thread from the General Discussion forum to the Armor Skills subforum of the Combat & Skill Lines forum as we feel it's a better fit.

Yeah just move them around in the forums...that's the solution...

Will we ever get to see any of this on the pts or live?

Invictus13

Can't wait to hear ESO staff comment on this subject, the propositions made here would change the game for the better !

Kypho

Heavy armor and blocking.... The shield is already op blocking crap since you cant break trough and he can just spamm his abilities. completly BS. Block should be nerfed, not boosted... Like bashing a foreverblocker should interrupt his blocking for 5 sec. or just remove the ability to use skills while blocking exept heals or not even that should be useable, or eat lot stamina if holding block more than 10/15 sec, and dont rest it for 5-10 sec. Enough tanking in this game, not speaking of the fkload healing...

And better increase dodge on medium armor, than remove it completly. like 3% per piece. or give NB passive that boost dodge in medium armor.

Khivas_Carrick

Um, blocking with any weapon blocks the same amount, shields just have the option to be a little cheaper. Also what skills can be used while blocking again?

Cody

Khivas_Carrick wrote: »

Um, blocking with any weapon blocks the same amount, shields just have the option to be a little cheaper. Also what skills can be used while blocking again?

lots of insta cast abilities. crystal shards can if it insta casts, for example. as well as some healing abilities.

Khivas_Carrick

Wait you can seriously do that? Ima have to test that *** out

Kypho

Khivas_Carrick wrote: »

Wait you can seriously do that? Ima have to test that *** out

yupp yupp... you can do. abilities should be just disabled while blocking, or something like that IMO. OR just enable light and heavy attack while blocking. makes sense lol.... since you can block while feared LOLZOS

Cody

Khivas_Carrick wrote: »

Wait you can seriously do that? Ima have to test that *** out

yes...... do it the easy way..... lol.

I wont judge. play how you want. you cant block if you are hit by my aspect of fear, so its no biggie for me:)

Khivas_Carrick

I actually forgot about this until I looked in here. I don't fight on the frontlines when I PvP so I don't really need to bother, but if I MUST do this, it'll be under extreme duress only lol